This invention relates in general to imaging and more specifically to a new agglomeration imaging system including a step of treating the agglomeration imaged member with a solvent or chemical reactant for said agglomeration material.
There has recently been developed an agglomeration imaging system wherein an agglomerable layer on and not embedded in a substrate is imagewise agglomerated for example by exposure to electromagnetic radiation of sufficient energy to cause the agglomerable layer to agglomerate to cause relative transparentizing, or color change and the formation of agglomerates in the exposed areas. Transparentizing or a color change is caused by the reduction of the effective cross-sectional area of the agglomerable layer in the imagewise exposed areas. Such an imaging system is disclosed in copending application Ser. No. 84,018, filed Oct. 26, 1970 allowed and awaiting issue.
Other agglomeration imaging system, where the agglomerable layer may be partially or completely embedded in a softenable layer, are disclosed in copending application Ser. No. 755,306, filed Aug. 26, 1968 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,502 on June 14, 1977 and Ser. No. 862,907, filed Oct. 1, 1969 and issued as U.S. Pat. No. 3,753,705 on Aug. 21, 1973.
Another somewhat related disclosure is Haas, Adams and Mechlowitz U.S. Pat. No. 3,671,237, which while not directly related to agglomeration imaging does relate to removal of imagewise unexposed particles from a substrate.
Copending application Ser. No. 301,383, filed Oct. 27, 1972, allowed and awaiting issue discloses an agglomeration imaging system including a step of physically removing the agglomerates from the agglomerated areas of agglomeration images. This usually provides a positive image from a positive light image input i.e. the more transparent or lighter areas of the resultant image after removal of agglomerates are those that were exposed to the light image input.
While the above-mentioned agglomeration imaging systems described in aforementioned applications Ser. Nos. 84,018 (allowed and awaiting issue); 755,306 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,502) and 862,907 (U.S. Pat. No. 3,753,705) are most satisfactory systems and while the images produced thereby are entirely suitable for many imaging applications including use as projection transparencies, the resulting image in some cases while visible, may be of relatively low contrast density. For example where an amorphous selenium agglomeration layer is used the agglomeration layer is reddish black in color to start with and the image areas which are agglomerated may be changed only to a slight unaided human eye detectable change in the original reddish black color.
Thus, there is a need for providing an even higher quality agglomeration image.
Because Ser. Nos. 84,018 (allowed and pending issue); 755,306 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,502) and 862,907 (U.S. Pat. No. 3,753,705) produce the agglomeration images which are contrast enhanced by the process of the instant invention and because Ser. No. 301,383 (allowed and awaiting issue) is a related application, the disclosures of these four copending applications are hereby expressly incorporated herein by reference.